Australia’s central bank said its asset tokenization pilot, Project Acacia, could deliver $16.7 billion in annual efficiency gains. The Reserve Bank of Australia brought together banks, asset managers, custodians, and fintech firms to test how real-world assets can be issued, managed, and settled in tokenized form across digital market infrastructure.
Project Acacia tested a wide range of tokenized assets
According to RBA Deputy Governor Brad Jones, the pilot covered a broad set of asset classes, including government bonds, repos, term deposits, investment funds, trade receivables, and mining revenues. The work was not limited to tokenizing assets on paper. It examined how those instruments could move through a fully digital market structure built around interoperable platforms and end-to-end settlement processes.
The trial also compared several payment and settlement methods. Teams tested stablecoins, bank-issued deposit tokens, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and custodial accounts on exchanges. That gave the project a way to evaluate how different payment tools could function inside the same market design, instead of assessing each option in isolation.
Automation and lower friction drove the projected benefit
The RBA tied the projected annual gain to a mix of operational and market improvements: more automation in asset management, fewer manual errors, better counterparty risk management, and stronger liquidity in fixed-income markets. The report gave particular attention to fixed-income products because they remain popular with foreign investors in Australia, making market structure and international connectivity central issues in any digital upgrade.
The language used by the central bank points to a policy shift. In the article’s description, the question is no longer whether tokenization will be adopted, but how it will be implemented. That is a material change in framing, and it places the focus on deployment, standards, and testing at scale.
Central bank prepares sandbox for digital market infrastructure
To support that next step, the RBA has started preparing a sandbox, a controlled environment designed to support experimentation around digital financial market infrastructure. The sandbox is intended to let industry participants run commercial-scale tests and work through technical issues such as how a CBDC could be integrated and used across different network protocols and platforms.
The article also said growth in stablecoins and deposit tokens has intensified competition among Australian banks developing these systems. The RBA expects major banks to use deposit tokens more often for larger transactions, while stablecoins are likely to be applied first in newer or more specialized parts of the financial system. Similar pilots and regulatory efforts are under way in other jurisdictions, and the report said timing matters as global standards for tokenization and digital infrastructure continue to take shape.